The Five Giants & the creation of the Welfare State

We will investigate:1. The five evil giants and how the Labour

Government attempted to tackle them.2. How successful the Government was in

eliminating the five Giant evils which plagued Britain.

The Welfare State

• After the war, which highlighted that so many people were deprived and poor, the Liberal politician William Beveridge identified five issues that needed to be tackled to make a better Britain.

• To achieve his aims, Beveridge proposed the introduction of a welfare state.

The proposal for a welfare state

• In 1942, the Liberal politician William Beveridge, who the government set the task of discovering what kind of Britain people wanted to see after the war, declared that there were five "giants on the road to reconstruction":

• poverty• disease• ignorance• squalor• idleness• To defeat these giants, he proposed setting up a welfare

state with social security, a national health service, free education, council housing and full employment.

• In the years after the war, the Labour government tried to make this vision come true.

The Five Giants

Beveridge slaying the 5 G’s

WANT – Social Security

• Family Allowances Act (1945) - 5s a week for each child after the first.

• National Insurance Act (1945) - unemployment pay for six months and sick pay for as long as you were sick.

• National Insurance - Industrial Injuries Act (1946) - extra benefits for people injured at work.

• National Assistance Act (1948) - benefits for anybody in need. 'The Times' described it as: 'the last defence against extreme poverty'.

Limitations?• Limitations of the National Insurance Act 1946:

– a large number of officials were needed to operate the scheme. – it did not provide for those members of society who were not in

work and had not made contributions.

• Limitations of the Industrial Injuries Act 1946:– compensation was paid by the Government not employers - this

meant that the Government footed the bill for injuries at work.

• Limitations of the National Assistance Act 1948: – it was means-tested - the financial assistance received depended

on the amount of money/valuables a family/individual possessed. – many of the elderly were reluctant to apply for assistance,

believing there was a stigma attached to it.

DISEASE – The NHS

• National Health Service Act (1948) - despite opposition from doctors, who insisted on the right to continue treating some patients privately, Aneurin Bevan brought in the NHS on 5 July 1948.

• Doctors, hospital, dentists, opticians, ambulances, midwives and health visitors were available, free to

everybody.

Limitations?

• The limitations of the NHS were:– Prescriptions rose from 7

million per month before the NHS to 13.5 million per month in September 1948.

– By 1950 the NHS was costing £358 million per year.

– The Government had to backtrack on its principle of a free service, by introducing charges for spectacles and dental treatment.

IGNORANCE - Education

• 1944 Education Act - 'Rab' Butler set the school-leaving age at 15, and introduced free secondary schools.

• Pupils took an '11-plus' IQ test that determined whether they went to grammar school (for academic pupils), secondary modern school (teaching practical subjects), or technical school (to teach practical skills).

Limitations?

• The limitations of this were:– Little had been done

to enhance the opportunities for working class children, most of whom left school at 15 with little or no paper qualifications.

– The Labour government did little for the educational welfare of the working class.

SQUALOR - Housing

• Town and Country Planning Act (1947) - set a target of building 300,000 new houses a year and 1.25 million council houses were built between 1945 and 1951. It also defined green belt land that had to be kept rural.

• New Towns Act (1946) - authorised the building of new towns at places such as Livingston and East Kilbride.

• The limitations of this were:– The 1951 census

revealed that there was approximately the same level of homelessness as in 1931.

– High demand for housing still existed.

Limitations?

IDELNESS – Full Employment

• Marshall Aid (1948) - the government used Marshall Aid to get industry going.

• The government nationalised the road haulage, railways and coal industries in 1947 and steel in 1951.

• The limitations of this were:– Nationalisation did

little to improve working efficiency in these industries .

– Wages and working conditions remained generally unimproved.

Limitations?